DC Database:Naming Conventions
The contains tens of thousands of articles and images. In order to keep the site organized we use a uniform set of rules when naming articles. These conventions cover the vast majority of situations, although exceptions may arise. The conventions are not optional as several, often unseen, aspects of the site's inner workings depend heavily on consistency. __TOC__ Articles Characters *'Character Entries.' Character entries should be listed by the real name and earth-designation of the character if possible. **If real name is given: ***Real Name consists of: "First name" "Used name" (if not the same as first name) "Surname" "Jr" (if applicable). None of the names should be shortened in any way. Stephen Trevor, Henry Heywood, Jr., Thaddeus Sivana, Sr., Theodore Kord, etc ***Surnames must be the birthname, unless specifically legally changed. ***No degrees or titles (unless the full name is unknown or is too generic. **If the real name is not given: ***Any titles in the codename will be written completely. Doctor, Mister. *** Most well known codename is better than the latest, and the real name is better than the alias, even if it should be more complete. **Earth-designation is given: The Earth-designation is listed after the real name in parenthesis. (Earth-One), (Earth-22). **Earth-designation is not given: ***Universe receives either the popular name used of it, or the title of the comic book series or issue that universe first appeared in. **As long as a character has a specific universe of origin, that Earth-designation is given to him/her/it. If not, generally stick to the main universe - New Earth, Prime Earth - while noting their extradimensional origin in the article text. * There are several high profile pages which have a different style, consisting of the main alias and the (sohrt) real name between brackets (Batman (Bruce Wayne), Flash (Barry Allen), etc.). These are the regular New Earth pages, and should be linked to as such (Bruce Wayne (New Earth) and Barry Allen (New Earth). This anomaly is to improve the pages' . It should not be applied to any newly created (Prime Earth) pages, nor should any existing pages be tagged for a move. Comics Page Names * Naming Comic Articles. All comics should be named according to the following format where possible: "x Vol y z", where x is the comic title, y is the volume number and z is the issue number. (eg. Superman Vol 1 3) ** Please Note: There are no # (hash/pound/number sign) or . (period) symbols in the title. Annuals * Annual issues should be named according to the following format where possible: "x Annual Vol y z", where x is the comic title, y is the volume number and z is the issue number. ** The Title field name should match the name of the series, the Volume field should be the same as the series with which the Annual is associated, and the Issue number should contain the number of the Annual (eg. Annual 3) Images Page Names Comic Images : Comic title''_Vol_''volume number''_''issue number.jpg (Please use .jpg format, in lowercase. It is our preferred file format). : Example: Detective Comics Vol 1 233.jpg : Volume number is required, even if it is volume 1, and volume 2 does not yet exist. : Example: Detective_Comics_Vol_1_233_Textless.jpg : Textless covers should be named as in the example above, simply by appending Textless to the end; the same goes for variants and sollicits. Character / Team Images : Primary subject''_''incremental number.jpg (Please use .jpg format, in lowercase. It is our preferred file format). : Example: Bruce_Wayne_New_Earth_0001.jpg, Bruce_Wayne_New_Earth_0002.gif, etc : The incremental number must be 4 digits long to ensure there will be sufficient numbers for future use. Miscellaneous * Avoid Abbreviations. The title of a file for Superman: The Man of Steel #30, should not be 'SMOS30.jpg', but rather more fully written out like 'Superman The Man of Steel Vol 1 30.jpg'. This helps our search feature more easily locate these images later. It also avoids possibility of conflicting names. The first example is ambiguous and could be interpreted as either Superman: The Man of Steel #30 or Superman: The Man of Steel Vol 1 #30 * Do Not Use Special Characters. Special characters in the title of the image can produce unexpected / unwanted results. Some web-browsers (IE6, Firefox, Opera) may handle names differently and what you see, isn't necessarily what everyone else sees. Avoid: @ # % & * ~ and characters with accents, if possible. * Do Not Use the Full Pagename. Using the full pagename in the image name - thus, placing parentheses around the universe designation - should be avoided. This is because, should the page be moved in the future, the find and replace function of the bots will pick up the image as an instance of the page name. This will lead to the image link being renamed into something non-existent, breaking the gallery. Category:Policies